Where do our national identities come from? Why do we feel Welsh or Scottish or Irish or English? This course will seek to answer these questions through a stimulating series of case studies on identity in the British Isles. It will explore issues like national myths, ethnicity and ideas about heritage, whilst also examining some big themes such as what history is and how it is used by different societies. In so doing, it will equip you with a set of skills that will enable you to get the most from your study of the past, including source analysis, strategies for research, information literacy and assignment-writing.

Archaeologists do much more than dig. This course offers an introduction to archaeological methods and interpretation, using a series of case-studies. From initial questions about archaeology (How are sites discovered and excavated? How long is the archaeological past? Who do we study it for?), the course goes on to introduce some of the approaches and techniques (from traditional to cutting-edge science) that allow a reconstruction of life in the past.

Through a series of stimulating case-studies on world religions throughout the ages, this course considers the study of religion from a variety of perspectives including historical, anthropological, textual, and psychological. In so doing it will equip you with study skills necessary for studying religion in an academic context.